TORONTO, Oct. 2, 2017 /CNW/ - CI Financial Corp. ("CI") announced today that it has completed its $780 million acquisition of Sentry Investments Corp. and its subsidiary Sentry Investments Inc. ("Sentry"). The addition of Sentry has increased CI's assets under management to approximately $140 billion and total assets (assets under management plus assets under advisement) to approximately $181 billion.

"We are very excited by the opportunities presented by the combined strength of two of Canada's largest independent asset managers," said Peter W. Anderson, CI's Chief Executive Officer. "The addition of Sentry expands our product offering and brings new advisor and client relationships to our firm. Our greater size and scale will allow for additional investments in operations, product development and enhanced service to our clients."

In addition, Mr. Anderson said that CI expects the acquisition to be accretive to earnings per share immediately, with full synergies being achieved by 2019.

Since the announcement of the acquisition on August 10, 2017, CI has secured long-term financing at attractive rates with the successful completion on September 27, 2017 of a debenture offering with aggregate principal amount of $250 million. The debt securities have a term of 10 years and carry an interest rate of 3.904% payable semi-annually. The acquisition has been financed with $230 million from the debenture offering and the balance is being paid in CI shares.

CI's balance sheet remains strong and CI forecasts that its debt-to-EBITDA ratio will be approximately 1:1 by the end of the year. This level leaves the company with the capacity for leverage to finance additional initiatives.

About CI FinancialCI Financial (TSX: CIX) is an independent Canadian company offering global asset management and wealth management advisory services. Its primary operating businesses are investment managers CI Investments Inc. and Sentry Investments Corp., advisory businesses Assante Wealth Management and Stonegate Private Counsel, Grant Samuel Funds Management of Australia, and First Asset Investment Management, a leader in providing actively managed exchange-traded funds to the Canadian marketplace. Further information is available at www.cifinancial.com.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and debt to EBITDA are not standardized measures prescribed by IFRS; however, CI believes that these financial measures provide information that is useful to investors in understanding CI's performance and facilitate a comparison of results from period to period. These non-IFRS measures and reconciliations to IFRS, where necessary, are included in Management's Discussion and Analysis in CI's annual and quarterly reports available at www.cifinancial.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements with respect to CI and its products and services, including its business operations and strategy and financial performance and condition. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include, among other things, general economic and market factors, including interest rates, business competition, changes in government regulations or in tax laws, CI's ability to achieve expected synergies from the acquisition of Sentry, and other factors discussed in materials filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time.